The present invention relates to baled hay lifting apparatus and more particularly to bale lifting apparatus mounted on tractors and cooperating therewith to be driven by the tractor power plant.
Tractors are the workhorses of farms and the like in the United States and many other territories. In recent decades, implements have been designed to operate off of the tractor power plant, thus providing many new power applications to the farmer or rancher.
One such application includes mounting an extendable scissor-like apparatus on the tractor front-end loader or three-point hitch, connecting an hydraulic cylinder to extend and compress the scissor, connecting a spear-type device to the free end of a scissor apparatus and using the mechanism to lift circular bales of hay from ground level on to a flatbed trailer. (See Page 32, Tennessee Farm Bureau News, September, 1994). Although somewhat functional, these prior apparatus experience serious structural, operational and safety problems because of the inadequacy of their design. Specifically, it is commonly known that the scissor linkages sometime give way under the weight of a medium to large bale being lifted. Bales can weigh as much as 1600-2000 pounds and even heavier when wet with absorbed moisture. This giving way can be very dangerous to workers near the flatbed, and of course, to the tractor driver, depending upon the direction the bale falls or moves in an uncontrollable manner. Damage to these linkages requires replacement of the unit with a new one and sometimes the damaged one can not be repaired.
Another problem involves the inability of these scissor units, when mounted on small tractors, to lift the bale sufficiently or high enough to place the bale on the flatbed surface or to place the second layer of bales on to a first layer of bales. This problem arises from the limitation on the height of the lifting capability of these prior art units. In addition, since the scissor must extend the lifted bale forward (rearward of the tractor, to increase lift height), the front tractor wheels tend to leave the ground when large bales are lifted. This reduces tractor stability during the lifting operation.